Eleven/River
Set after "The Angels Take Manhattan"
Summary: The Doctor regrets that he'll never be able to love River the way she wants
A/N: Confession time: This is really just a drabble I had to write to explain to myself why on earth the Doctor acted the way he did regarding River, and she to him, as well. The show did so many contradictory things with this relationship that made me crazy. I mean, don't tell me things like:
"Who else was I going to fall in love with?" "When one's in love with an ageless god…" "My love" "I'm his wife", over and over, etc, ad nauseum and then when they have a chance to be together, then have her say, "Only one psychopath per TARDIS." Wha-huh?
Because you know what you make me do, show? You make me have to write fanfiction to explain your nonsense, that's what you make me do!
Sigh. Anyway, this was just something rattling in my brain, and why (to me, at least) this was a relationship that had tragedy, rather than genuine romance, written all over it.
He's going to take her for a night she'll never forget, and this time she won't say no.
Although she didn't technically say no the last time. Not to the running, anyway. River had said she'd join him anytime and anyplace, except for the one he'd meant: a permanent place on the TARDIS with him.
The Doctor is tidying his hair in the reflection of the TARDIS view-screen and wonders if maybe he should try a hat for the occasion. Then he remembers that River shot a bullet through his fez, and his stetson, and frowns.
Really, she should consider herself lucky that he'd even asked her in the first place, what with the way she kept attacking his favourite things.
It was just like a wife, he thought, to throw one's toys out the window just because you weren't paying her enough attention. He smiles, but it almost instantly vanishes on his face as he considers something, something he doesn't really like to think about, but sometimes can't help.
He knows full well that she's not actually his wife. They all know it, considering it happened in a universe that never existed in a timeline that never happened. And there was also the matter of him going through the ceremony in the first place because there was a proverbial gun pointed at every living thing in creation.
It's not real. But River had clung to the title like space barnacles to the TARDIS. At first, he'd thought she'd been joking, and he'd joined in the joke, calling her "dear" and "honey" and about how he'd been held up by traffic. But he couldn't help noticing that every time he'd said the words, River had lit up like a Christmas tree, as though he'd given her some sort of true acknowledgement that he thought of her as his wife.
It had unsettled him to the core, and yet, he couldn't bear to throw it back in her face that it was all in jest. So he'd said the words even more frequently, thinking that, since she knew him so well, she'd eventually catch on that the banter was funny, that it was funny to him, playing house with Amy and Rory's daughter, and because, in a way, it connected him to their family, to Rory and, even more so, to Amelia Pond, who had been sealed onto his hearts.
But if she'd known it was a joke, she'd never let on, and it troubles him to suspect that to River Song, it is utterly serious. Because River really and truly does love him. She loves him so much she was ready to destroy the universe for him, and he also knows that he can't ever love her back the way she loves him.
But worst of all, he knows that he's the focal point of her whole existence, that she was snatched from her parents and raised to be a killer, and that it should be Amy and Rory's own child that had to suffer this because of him fills him with a guilt that is almost too heavy to bear.
So now when he says the words, he knows it isn't a joke, but he says them anyway. He gives Amy's daughter what she needs, some title of importance, because maybe if he does he'll have balanced the scales of what he took from her. With River, it's never been so much about loving her, because all he's ever been able to see is how much he owes her, and owes Amy and Rory for what he's done to all of their lives.
But the very worst of it, is that sometimes, he thinks River knows. She can read him so well, and why shouldn't she, since she spent her whole life studying him. He hates that she can see sometimes that what he's given her has been so superficial. It brings a sadness to her eyes that reminds him of Amy when she'd lost Rory, as though it's something she doesn't want to believe but knows she must.
He just wishes he could love her the way she wants. He's tried so many times, and it would be so much simpler if he did.
So maybe, maybe if he can convince her to stay on the TARDIS with him, his feelings will change. Maybe he can call her wife and have it mean something more than just playful banter that makes him feel like part of the family and assuage his own guilt for wrecking her entire life.
He straightens his bow tie and heads for the door of the TARDIS as it comes to a halt. But as he reaches the door, his hand pauses on the knob.
"Maybe you'll listen to her."
The Doctor closes his eyes because River had seen through him, even then. She'd told him not to travel alone, but it had only been when Amy made the request that he'd even considered listening. Because all River was to him, when everything was said and done, was the daughter of someone he had loved, his first face, his adored Amelia Pond, who'd bounded into his hearts as a child and had left in a blaze of red-haired glory alongside her husband.
He wanted so much to not let her down, and to give her daughter the happy ending he hadn't been able to give to her and Rory.
He wants to love River for herself, it's what she deserves after all she's done for him.
But love, and he's old enough by now to know it, never works that way. He has nothing of real value to give her, nothing but jokey banter and a false title that he doesn't feel. He can give her nothing, after all she's given him.
And then he realizes that isn't entirely true.
There is something he can give to River, a precious something only a handful of souls have ever had. He can't give her his love.
But he can give River his name.
Because she knows him, she'll know that nothing less that the utmost trust would inspire him to do it, and trust her, at least, he most emphatically does.
He checks his reflection in the view-screen again.
Yes. He'll tell her his name tonight. The one gift he can genuinely give, not because she's Rory and Amy's daughter, but because she's her.
A small ripple of relief passes through him, but even so, he wishes things were different. He wishes so much that he could love River Song the way she deserves to be loved.
But now's not the time to dwell on it. He's got his gift and when he sees her he'll kiss her and call her wife, and try to make it sound like it's sincere. And his hearts will break every time he sees her because he'll know it's not enough and he'll feel his failure of Amy and Rory every time he looks at her.
But she doesn't have to know. And he'll do whatever he can to make sure she never does.
He turns his hand on the knob, and takes a deep breath, knowing she's waiting outside.
"Honey, I'm back," he calls, seeing a flash of wild, blonde hair.
And the Doctor smiles broadly to cover the pain in his eyes.
THE END